


by the dying embers

by blood bag boogie (evil_bunny_king), evil_bunny_king



Series: The Ember Days [1]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Book 2, Rabbits, Slow Burn, and oh the longing, just turned!Nate, major slant on the COMFORT, no triangles here; it's definitely a circle, the detective has two hands, the yearning, time and space to breathe a moment, time travel shenanigans and chalets in the alps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25527127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/blood%20bag%20boogie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/evil_bunny_king
Summary: Nate’s brow furrows. Strands of his long hair have pulled free from his ribbon tie, curling against his cheek."You haven’t come from Lisbon," he clarifies.Ava's lips twitch against a smile. "No. I haven’t.”He blinks, slowly. “Where, then?”She tilts her head. “When.”--Ava/Detective/Nate poly time-travel AU. I am UNASHAMED.
Relationships: Ava du Mortain/Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell, Ava du Mortain/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell, Female Detective/Ava du Mortain, Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell
Series: The Ember Days [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1936339
Comments: 31
Kudos: 43
Collections: The Ember Days





	1. Part 1: beginning (again)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from the beautiful 'Color Song' - Maggie Rogers
> 
> Let's say that it takes Ava's route as a starting point (differences will be explored throughout ;D)

Dinah awakes, cracking her eyes open against the glare of unrestrained sunshine, and blinks up at a stretch of cloudless sky.

She sits up, taking it slow when her muscles protest the movement. She looks around. She’s sitting in a sloped meadow, facing a chalet built against the mountain. It’s one story of cobbled stone and slotted logs, its roof neatly thatched, the painted green door reachable only by a dirt path that disappears into the surrounding forest. Quiet. Quaint.

And she’s never seen it before.

She frowns, and the wind ripples from the trees and through the wild grass, the sharp spines of alpine flowers flicking against her bare arms and shins. She thinks back and she remembers her office at the police station, maybe. She remembers meeting 'Unit Bravo' there in the morning; she remembers her clothes, and yet-

She feels the stir of a body beside her - Ava, half curled around her in the grass - and relief floods through her.

 _Ava_ , she tries to say, but her voice sticks in her throat.

Ava pushes herself to her knees and straightens out slowly, unfurling her cramped limbs with something like a wince. She’s dirty and rumpled, her soft jogging pants pulled up at an ankle, but her eyes are sharp as they meet hers, searchingly, before sketching over the surrounding area. In the bright sunlight her irises are washed clear as spring water.

She looks at the house and Dinah sees a strange tremor ripple through her - shock, she thinks, taking in her widening eyes. _Recognition_.

"Ava," she asks, once she can find her voice. “Are you okay?”

Ava stirs, almost swaying, and then she’s looking at her again, an intensity in her green-glass gaze. She examines her and the lines of her expression softens, her hand drifting through the space between them. She doesn't touch her, not quite. Dinah feels the phantom warmth of her fingers over her wrist.

"...yes," Ava says, after a moment, her voice just as rasped. She licks her dry lips to speak again, frowning against the glare of the sunlight and her hand retreats, fumbling ineffectively at her pockets for a pair of aviators that are not there. "Although I should be asking you that."

Ava's gaze flicks across her features again before slipping down to her bared shoulders, her torn tank top, the strap hanging by an embarrassing thread and a flush burns up Dinah's neck, her cheeks, before Ava finally blinks away.

Ava shrugs her arms out of her too-large sweater, pulling it over her head in a stretch that gives a glimpse of the pale, taut lines of her stomach before holding the jumper out with an implicit _here_.

Dinah takes it without complaint. There is a bite to the air, a chill that eases into the breeze when a cloud blots out the sun. She can see it run its fingers over Ava’s toned arms, the thin skin over her collarbone, chased by goosebumps.

She wrestles the jumper over her stiff shoulders, losing herself in the sleeves. It’s thick and soft, and _warm-_ a memory of body heat, perfume, _Ava_ against the smell of bruised grass and she pulls the collar over her head, battening down those hatches, hard. Not _now_ , of all places.

"What happened?" she croaks instead.

All she can remember is - an impression of violence. The earlier laziness of the morning, guiding Nate through the Nescafè machine she'd gained in his convalescence and smiling wide and silly as their hands muddled and crossed.

“Magic,” comes the answer. Dinah runs her tongue over her teeth. That explains the burnt taste on the roof of her mouth.

“Where are we?”

Ava gazes at the house, her braid unravelling over her bare shoulder, strands of hair catching and drifting in the breeze.

And then she reaches for her shoulder, pressing gently but firmly in a non-subtle order to _stay put_. "Wait here," is all that Ava says, and then the woman levers herself to her feet, stalking through the grass towards the chalet.

The chalet itself looks innocuous enough. The siding is washed white and weather-beaten, the green of the door like a flush of new green growth against peeling grey. The shutters on the lower floor are all flung open, revealing the warped glass of windows cracked open against the summer heat. Flies buzz in the sunshine, pleasantly swatting into her side and swooping around her head when she waved them away. If it wasn't for the fact that this was painfully obviously _not_ _in Kansas_ , anymore, Dinah might even say it was peaceful.

She can still feel the - _magic -_ when she thinks about it. It’s like hooks caught under her skin, a pull against the grain, a latent _drag_ \- but when she runs her hands over her bare arms there’s nothing except the smooth warmth of her skin. There aren’t any physical marks. She's not sure if she's grateful for that, or not.

Her hand falls to her wrist, idly tracing the knotted scars there, as she watches Ava carefully, slowly, approach the door.

She knocks a knuckle against the wood, twice, and pauses, seeming to listen to the sounds from inside. Like a woodpecker, tempting movement from within - and as soon as the image hits her she giggles, entirely inappropriately - she must be dazed, she thinks, she doesn't think the magnitude of this has hit her yet - and Ava shoots her a reproving look in the split second before the door opens.

And then there's a figure standing in the doorway, blinking out into the sunlight, wiping at his fingers with a small cloth. A silhouette she recognises, dipping beneath the low frame of the door: dark brown hair laced with gold in the sun, open features warmed by a smile.

"Nate," Ava and Dinah breathe, at the same time. Nate's gaze flicks to her over Ava's shoulder, surprised, confused, and then returns to Ava. There's tension knotted in Ava's shoulders, in the way her hands clench and are forced back open at her sides.

"...Ava," Nate returns the greeting, and his voice filters through the breeze. The lilt of it catches her, though: there's a curl of a northern English accent, softened with a burr she can't place. 

There are more differences, too- his hair is longer, tied loosely back; he’s wearing a billowing laced shirt and what could only be breeches ending just below the knee, revealing brown skin bronzed by the sun, calves, bare feet. He scrutinises Ava, the same way the woman is obviously scrutinising him.

He leans against the doorway. "I wasn't expecting you for at least a month, yet," he says, and his voice curls unfamiliarly around the word _yet_. "Or at all, without your letter."

Another pause. Nate's gaze flicks to Dinah again- curious and wary, cautiously polite - and it's that lack of recognition that cuts through any lingering amusement and bleariness that had settled over her. He doesn't recognise her. She doesn't quite recognise _him_ \- and the penny drops like a stone, straight through her heart to her stomach. The unfamiliar surroundings, the differences - the way Nate steps forward, this time, settling a careful hand on Ava's taut shoulder. 

"Ava," he says again, when his hand isn’t shrugged away. He frowns as he searches her expression, evidently not reading what he wanted to there. "Are you alright? What's going on? Why are you and your… friend _here_? And why are you dressed so…?" 

His gesture encompasses Ava's fitted shirt and tied jogging pants, and Dinah, on her feet now and walking towards them through the grass.

Flies buzzing over the meadow. The thick weight of the sweater over her skin, smelling of bruised grass and damp cotton but also - of Ava; a woven shield over the fluttering of her pulse, the pound of her blood in her neck.

And _Nate doesn't recognize her._

Ava turns her head at her approach, profile gilded by the sunlight. Her shoulders move, rolling out against the strain.

"How long has it been, Nate?" Ava asks, and her voice is offbeat, softer than the question it poses. She turns back to him, watching him with a steady focus and Dinah sees Nate blink, long lashes feathering shadows across his cheeks. Familiar and unfamiliar. A different man, a different… place. "Since you've last fed," she clarifies.

A shadow crosses his features. He drops his hand from her shoulder and frowns, lips parting on a breath. "It's been... regular enough. As it was before you left."

“Today?”

“...No.”

Ava nods, as if expecting that. She looks towards Dinah for a brief, lingering moment before turning on her heel and stepping towards the forest, away from the house. "Then we'll go now. Dinah will stay here. She is - a _friend_ , and she will be safer here."

"Of course. I can show her to the living room and go change. But-"

"Now, Nate,” and Dinah recognise the tone, the one that brokers no arguments. This version of Nate does, as well, his hands falling immediately back to his sides. His brow furrows and his eyes flick to Dinah again - to the jumper she’s buried herself within, arms crossed tightly over her chest. His gaze slips down her outfit, the tight fit of her jean capris, her bared calves, and then away, abashed. She's close enough now to see the flush warm his cheeks and she feels oddly _self-conscious_.

He meets Ava’s gaze, wordless questions in his expression.

“I will explain," Ava says quietly, and her hand on his arm says, _later_.

Nate nods, his mouth pulling into a line, and Ava pulls him, not-ungently, after her. She nods Dinah towards the open door as Nate staggers out of it.

"Lock the door," she tells Dinah, with a look Dinah supposes was meant to promise answers.

And then they're gone.

Dinah stands there a moment in the long grass, her mind, her thoughts, awhirl and spinning, before pushing her feet into motion once more. She makes it into the hallway, kicking dust onto the brightly coloured rug. She glimpses candelabra on the tables, dripped with melted wax. A hearth in the kitchen, coals carefully banked and a kettle hung over it. There are oil lamps and inkwells, quill pens and feathers scattered on a desk in a front room strewn with open books. She remembers to close and lock the door and trudges back to do so.

She settles in the living room.

Bookcases line the open walls. The smell of the cut pine wars with the smell of burning wood from the small iron fireplace as she curls into the window seat and stares out at the unreal world.

The snow-capped peaks of mountains greet her over the rolling woods, bright against the clear sky and distorted by the oddly-thick glass. A bluebottle buzzes along the window, fruitlessly skimming the marbled glass before eventually zipping off to die amongst the book stacks. Unfamiliar. _Impossible_. 

She pulls out her phone. Unsurprisingly, there's no signal; not that she's sure what she'd do if there were. Google mapped her location, perhaps? Text Ava, telling her she was _an ass_ for just leaving her here in the middle of nowhere, with a fragmented memory and that stomach drop dread of things she can’t remember.

She drops her phone onto the plush cushions padding the window box and presses her palms into her temples. 

This doesn’t make sense. And of course it doesn’t; she doesn’t remember it - only glimpses of normal workdays, Nate's first day back in the office; research into the latest oddities to strike the town and then a vague memory of-

Each time she grasps for it the memory slips from her, slick as oil and leaving a greasy film behind. 

She tucks her knees to her chin. She wraps her arms around them and indulges in private panic as the sun makes its slow journey across the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three parts in total, of definitively varying lengths. (Three chaps to part one, we'll see how long this gets!)
> 
> OKAY SO-
> 
> Northern post-Stuart Nate, I can't even. I am warning you now. There will be maudlin/ott 17th/18th C ballads making appearances. Maybe even bad lute playing (is it a lute they would use? I need to Google)
> 
> The aesthetic for this was variably the idea of Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein in Geneva, Virginia Woolf's Orlando, and Jeanette Winterson and her Lancelot and Guinevere story in the Power Book (Ava, I'm looking at you).
> 
> And then I went completely off piste, so there that.


	2. Part 1: Nathaniel Sewell

There’s a calm, half-familiarity to the forest as Ava flits through the trees, following a path she hasn’t thought about in a century. 

The cascade of sound, at once familiar and almost forgotten. The rustle of a burrowing creature, nesting underground; an explosion of flight as two birds chase each other down a cliff’s edge; the babbling of running water, the creak of the earth.

She hears Nate’s light steps behind her, still stumbling occasionally as he leaps between rocks. He’s like a deer growing into its legs - it had taken him a decade to fully adjust to the changes, she remembers, the memory flickering into thought. She remembered how he’d complain about it, in that subtle, askance way of his.

They come to the gully in the last swell of the foothills and Ava finally stops, her feet slowing before her wandering thoughts register where they are.

She stands there above the tumble of fern and stone, and tries to think _._

That this is more than two centuries ago, or an approximation of that time, she doesn’t doubt. She knew this forest and the chalet before landslides and avalanches razed the trees, before men bore into their roots, levelling, digging. She remembers, she remembers-

But Dinah does not. Dinah is here, in a time and place not her own, and all too painfully _human_.

Ava remembers warm, thin fingers in her own. Smiling eyes, dark lashes; the brush of her hair against her cheek, as she leaned in close enough to whisper "then what is this, Ava? What are we?"

A breath, and then that too is relegated to another time. Another place.

Nate comes up beside her, stepping carefully, his gaze settling on her flexing hands.

“Ava,” he says again. There’s that same slight pause of hesitation and she almost laughs as it clicks into place and she finds a new memory: of the tug-of-war they’d waged over that first decade. _Miss Ava._ _Lady du Mortain_. It had taken half a century to get him to drop the habit entirely. It would’ve been earlier, if he hadn’t refound his courage and started to _tease_.

His hand alights on her shoulder, cautious and warm - and she is cold, she realises; the heat from the meadow was stolen by the rush through the woods and the sun is blotted out by the foliage overhead.

It takes her a moment but she rolls her shoulders, stepping away from him and closer to the rock of the gully edge. And Nate lets her, as she knew he would. There’d still been distance between them, back then. She hadn’t known anything else. Not before him.

“What is the year?” she asks, and Nate pauses, expression unreadable. “Today,” she clarifies.

“The third decade of the 18th century,” he says, and his tone is light. “1730, to be precise.”

 _Three centuries._ “And how long ago did I leave?”

“For Lisbon?”

Ah, she remembers that. The months spent in formal drudgery in the orbit of the court, a ruffled collar hot at her throat. She'd escaped the corset, at least. She nods, an incline of her head, and she sees the way his gaze wavers.

“It hasn’t been a month, yet.”

 _“Good_.” The tension in her shoulders lightens, that grip in her chest easing. They had time then, before she - the current Ava, the past-Ava - returned. Perhaps they could avoid her finding out entirely; she certainly didn’t remember this, if she had.

Nate watches her, shifting his feet in the grass before the jut of stone she’s perched on. There's dust and grass stains kicked up his bare ankles. His mouth is pressed into a worried line, and _that,_ at least, is still familiar.

“What’s going on, Ava?” he asks, more carefully than he’d grown to. "What happened to you?"

Ava listens to the forest for the steady pace of smaller hearts, picking paths through the slipping shale, and thinks about what he needs to know and what she can risk. She thinks about the magic that brought them here, and she can still feel the drag of it like a lead lining to her bones, her teeth.

“Do you remember what I told you about Antakya?” she says at last, looking at him from the side of her eye.

She sees him frown as he hunts for the memory.

“The ruins of Antioch,” he says, after a moment. “You mentioned you were there, after its fall.”

Smoke, ash, the scream of dying men and horses. Ruin. She blinks, and there's only the running water again. “Yes,” she confirms. “But I was not the only one. There were others - magic wielders, older than I was and less… shy about their abilities.”

Nate approaches her at that, his bare feet quiet as they cross onto the moss-covered ledge. “The stone eaters,” he clarifies.

They’d brought the wall of the great city down, compelling the earth to swallow it as if it were never there.

"That’s what they called themselves.”

“You mentioned that their magic was more like - a push and pull,” he says. She feels the contemplative weight of his gaze. “That they could move objects across great distances, or remove them entirely."

"That's what I'd believed. But I think that I was wrong." A heavier, animal movement, stepping through the trees - she turns her head towards it to calculate the distance before letting her gaze finally resettle on his. He holds it, and she almost hesitates at the conflicting emotions she sees there. He is _young_ , she finds herself thinking. He is still so young.

"We - _I_ , found another of their kind. Or something akin to it. Far from here. It attacked us and it’s magic brought us here. To this time, this place; I’m not sure how."

Nate’s brow furrows, strands of his long hair pulling free from his ribbon tie to curl against his cheeks. There is a strain in his features, in the shadows beneath his eyes, the line of his mouth. She was right - he hadn’t been feeding.

"You haven’t come from Lisbon," he clarifies

Her lips twitch against a smile.

"No. I haven’t.”

He blinks, slowly. “Where, then?”

“ _When._ ” She pauses, wondering how to phrase it. “A place that you haven’t known yet.”

“I will know it, then?”

“You will.”

“When?”

She tilts her head. "Three centuries hence.”

Whatever the answer he was expecting, it was not that. She feels as much as sees the way he reels, landing heavily on his heels, almost staggering a step back. He blinks at her, eyes wide - she’s told this badly, clumsily, she knows that she has. Would Dinah have been able to phrase it better? Nate certainly would have.

" _Three centuries-_ " He breaks off mid-sentence with a laugh and then tries again. "That is… would I-?"

She holds up a hand in warning and he snaps his mouth shut, rolling forward again on to the balls of her feet. "Don't."

He tries. The struggle wars across his features, burning interest fighting whatever respect and fear she'd managed to instill in him previously, intentionally or unintentionally.

He fails. "But that includes the _millennium_."

" _Nate_."

“You keep calling me that,” he says, and his smile is lopsided. 

She blinks, considering that. Of course. Of course, he’d only adopted the name after…

She clears her throat. “Nathaniel,” she amends, and it sits oddly on her tongue, it’s been so long since she’s used it. And then, after another moment, “please.”

He snaps his mouth shut again. His expression gentles, curiosity giving way and something else revealed in its absence.

"...as you wish," he says, and his smile is warm, honest.

"I would tell you if it mattered, Nathaniel," she says. Her words are softer than she’d meant them to be, and his smile fades. He examines her, his gaze flicking over her expression, the cut of her modern shirt, the fall of her braid, before meeting her eye again, searching.

Then slowly, he nods- and she wonders if he'll remember this, in the years to come. She hopes that he won't.

She clears her throat, strengthening her voice. “We don't belong here. I would ask for your help in our return, if you would grant it."

"Of course I will." He agrees so easily. He doesn’t look away from her. "How could I not? I owe you at least one life-time, if not more."

More tension eases from her shoulders, as bittersweet as it is. "Thank you, Nathaniel."

He blinks away her thanks, turning to face the gully, an arm's length away and close enough to touch. There’s the rapid-pulse of approaching bodies in the ferns below - a deer, or a goat, maybe, but it’s Nate she hears. His heartbeat is strong, steady. She feels her own slow in turn.

"Your friend, she is human." Another statement. His pulse upticks ever so slightly - a hint of nerves and - oh.

She looks at him, understanding stirring. "Dinah is… unusual. Her blood is powerful, tempting, but she cannot be compelled.” She reaches out, her hand finding the curve of his arm and squeezing. “It will not be an issue.”

Another moment, and then the line of his shoulders eases. "I believe you," he says, and his voice is quiet. Trusting. He blows out a breath like a child, indulging himself, before glancing at her again. "Can I at least ask whether she is part of that organisation of yours?"

"Of ours," she corrects and Nate gives her a wry look. She hesitates only a moment, considering, before: "yes. She is."

He nods. She can see him slot that into place, his eyelashes fluttering as he thinks, the idle flex of his jaw. "Alright," he says, acquiescing, and obviously making the effort to smother additional questions. He looks out into the forest.

"Shall we, then?"

He gestures to the rising mountain slope ahead, flourishing with a flick of his untied sleeve. It just now occurs to her that by the standards of the time, what he’s wearing - untucked shirt and breeches - could be considered immodest. He’s indulged her, nevertheless. “I’d say after you, Lady Ava, but knowing you-”

He slips down the gully in a spray of pebbles, his loose shirt swelling behind him.

Ava follows, and maybe, perhaps, she even smiles.


	3. Part 1: Dinah

They return to the chalet a little over an hour later, the air thick and drowsy in the high sun, and Ava sees the silhouette of the detective through the bottle glass of the window.

Nate hesitates before the door and looks at her askance. There is more warmth in his cheeks now, his skin brighter, fuller. Ava pauses too for a single, wavering moment, feeling the trip of nerves in her chest, before she steels herself. She knocks on the door.

There’s a shift of movement from the living room. The scuff of shoes against warped floorboards, the creak of the threshold and rattle of the unlocking chain and then Dinah draws back the bolt and pulls the door open.

She blinks in the direct sunlight, reaching for the door frame for balance. She looks dishevelled, tired, shadows drawn beneath her eyes and her dark brown curls slipping wild about her face- and more than anything she is beautiful.

Ava's heart stirs, thuds. The sound is heavy against the slightly nervous tick of Nate's heartbeat, and the steady, angry pace of Dinah's.

Dinah’s eyes find hers, that brown so deep it could be black, silvered by the sun.

"I need a word," she says, and her voice is hard.

Ava ignores Nate's surprise at the command in the tone. She holds her gaze, letting her eyes track over her expression, finding the strain in her bitten lips, the pull at the corner of her eyes. There’s a faint sourness of stress and panic, underlying her lingering perfume, and she has the urge to reach out and take her hand, to soothe her, apologise.

She allows herself to feel the draw of it, the fluttering warmth, before letting it settle once more.

"Shall we walk?" she says instead, when she trusts her voice.

She tilts her head towards the overgrown path that winds down into the valley, in the opposite direction to where they’d hunted.

Dinah scrutinises her, bitten lips pressing into a firm line.

“Let’s.”

And then Dinah steps past them both, following the path she’d indicated through the rustling grass. Nate leans against the weathered siding and quirks a brow, amusement and new questions in his bright eyes. Ava ignores them, ignores him, and steps out after her.

\--

Dinah's pace quickens when she reaches the forest. She steps beneath the low branches, picking her way through the roots, and Ava lets her lead, waiting for her to break the silence. She bends back branches and lets them whip back as Ava passes. She doesn’t look at her, expression stormy as she trudges through the encroaching undergrowth.

She’s still wearing the grey jumper, her hands tucked in the too-long sleeves and crossed tightly across her chest.

Ava breathes and smells, tastes, the blend of her scent and Dinah’s against the damp of the earth and the rot and growth of new life. It’s warm against her pulse, the weight of the jumper collar, before the breeze rises, stripping the leaves from the trees.

The weather and the afternoon is turning.

She reaches out, her fingers settling gingerly against her forearm and Dinah spins away at the touch but she does, at least, finally face her.

Her expression is animated, disarming in her fury. There’s a flood of words held there, pressed against a crumbling dam.

“I needed you, back there.”

Ava’s hands fall back to her sides, eyes widening. She works her throat, reaching for new words. “Dinah-”

“No.” She raises a hand sharply, her gaze hardening as it meets hers before once again she looks away. She pauses there a moment, taking a measured, steadying breath. Her heartbeat fluctuates like a boat in a storm. “No, Ava - I need- I need you to listen."

And she does, her thoughts filled with her heartbeat and the unsteady rhythm of her own.

“I needed you,” Dinah starts again, when she can. “We’ve been through this - we’re a team, we’re in this together, and yet-.” She runs her hands through her hair, grimacing as she catches on the tangles. “You just-”

_ You left me _ , she doesn't say, but Ava hears it all the same, twisting in her chest like a squeezed breath.

It was necessary, she wants to say, she should say. It was temporary. I could never, would never leave you.

The immensity of the day presses in like sunlight, immutable and cascading, and she raises a hand to her temple, dredging her voice as if from the bottom of a well. There’s that aborted need for touch - her free hand twitches with it as she lets her other fall away, straightening to meet Dinah’s too-bright gaze. And regardless of intention, she is still right.

“Dinah,” she says. And then, “I’m sorry.”

Dinah looks at her, her gaze hard but softening, and when she blinks a tear catches on her eyelashes like dew. She blinks again, brushing it away, and then nods, looking back into the tumble of rock and trees around them. Her heartbeat is still too fast, laced with adrenaline and lingering panic but the next breath she takes sounds easier.

They’ve walked far enough to find the loop of the eastern river, gurgling and swollen with snow melt at the edge of the path. Ava hears it, suddenly. The sound as the forest resettles, a creak of bending wood and rustling leaves, and it’s careless and it’s clumsy and it’s alive.

“Thank you,” Dinah says, after a moment. She gifts her with a small, wavering smile and then she sighs, a breeze through bullrushes.

“So,” she says at last. “What the hell is going on?”

Ava starts walking again, her steps drifting closer, bridging the gap between them and Dinah turns into it and her feet find the path once more, following the wend of the river.

Ava's voice is quiet when she speaks, soft in her mouth. “What do you remember?”

They walk as they talk, slower this time. Dinah exchanges questions for answers in a rhythm Ava is learning and the mountain breeze curls Dinah’s arms across her chest, drawing her hair across her eyes until it's pushed back by impatient fingers. They spin around the topic of temporal magic, awhile; debate the existence of parallel worlds. They linger on the risk of paradox. They were attacked on patrol outside of town, following reports of unlicensed construction somewhere in the woods - something Dinah still can't remember although whether this is due to the magic or something else, Ava's not sure. They cannot stay long, they agree on that; the risk of running into herself is more than either of them are willing to consider. Dinah is obviously fascinated but the question of where they are now is more than enough to distract her.

"So where are we?"

“Lauterbrunnen, in the canton of Bern. You would know it as part of Switzerland.”

“Switzerland. Three hundred years ago. I can’t get my head around that,” she says, laughing, and she tilts towards her where she walks in stride. 

Dinah reaches out, carefully, and her fingers are warm as they settle against the crook of her arm. When Ava doesn’t step away she gets bolder, slipping her hand around her elbow, tucking herself closer. Ava’s hand folds over hers. The press of her jumper is soft, warm, soft as the body behind it.

She feels Dinah’s grip tighten beneath hers, catching her glance, her smile, before she blinks back at the forest once more.

“What do you remember?” she asks.

Ava feels the pull of old memory as she thinks back, the moments scattered and fragmentary. But these few years, yes, yes she remembers. 

“Enough,” is all she says, and Dinah cocks her head to look at her, grip tightening on her arm.

“You were here with Nate,” she prompts. “You’ve stayed here a while; returned here over the years, even.” At Ava’s raised brow she shrugs, smiling. “I had time, after you left. I looked through a few of the books.”

Nate’s collection, carefully stowed in trunks over the winter and unearthed again each year with the advent of spring - those he didn’t carry back down the mountain with him.

“Also,” she continues, seeing Ava's expression remain unchanged, “there’s no way even the two of you would be able to haul that many books up for a single trip. The furniture looks as if it’s been settled in for years. Lived in. Habit worn into the space. And also, I know you.”

Her smile has stretched into a grin, an eyebrow raising, and Ava huffs a laugh and lets it go unchallenged, her thumb skating idly over the thin skin of her knuckles.

“You’re right. As you know you are.” Dinah snorts; Ava ignores her, and would happily deny the smile she feels curling her own lips, too. She refocuses on the glaze of memory, what is hers to share. “This land, the house upon it, was mine and now it is his. We spent a lot of time here, after he was turned.”

The weight of her gaze again, a pause in breath. “Then that could only be…”

She turns her head to meet her gaze, watching her expression. “He was turned less than a decade ago."

Dinah takes a deeper breath and holds it, tongue to her teeth. “He's mentioned that it was… difficult." Dinah's words are careful, her steps slowing consciously or unconsciously. "That is…"

Ava pulls them to a stop, twisting to face her, a feeling of pain, almost grief, welling in her throat.

"You don't need to fear him," she starts- but Dinah is shaking her head, strands of her hair drifting across her cheek. 

“No, I don’t think I could. As wise or unwise as that might be." Her smile is wry, anticipating a response Ava might have had to that. Ava raises an eyebrow but waits, and Dinah licks her top lip, finding the words she's looking for. "He’s... not the man I know, though, is he?”

Ava smiles, a small quirk to her lips. “Not quite. Not yet." She feels Dinah's hand shift beneath her own, warm, long fingered, human and out of time, out of place. "Which is why-”

“I know,” Dinah says, and whether that’s an agreement of the risks they were taking being here or an acknowledgement of why Ava had left her earlier, she’s not sure. But she smiles, soft and tired, creasing the shadows smeared under her eyes. "I know."

The path they’re following eventually disintegrates, forcing them to duck beneath the low, bent branches of the surrounding trees. Dinah releases her arm to untangle herself from a briar, sucking her pricked thumb. She asks her final question.

“So. What do we do now?”

Ava rolls her shoulders, feeling the strain between her shoulder blades. The forest is loud above the running of the brook, chirps and chattering filling the spaces around them. The sun is sinking. The muted light through the tree-cover plays over Dinah's features and in the half-shadow she could look ethereal, like a ghost; like the phantoms they are. Out of time and out of place.

Ava tilts her head back the way they came, towards the field and the chalet.

“We find a way back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Progress is being made!
> 
> In the meanwhile, check out [deltangam](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27542269/chapters/67359454) for more of the poly route and this verse: Nate and Ava (and Dinah) over 300 years (this story is insisting on being written non-chronologically).
> 
> Also check out more Ava/Nate and/or time travel stories in the [Ember Days collection.](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Ember_Days)


End file.
